Like the vast majority of people living in the United States, after reading the handy WSJ infographic I have absolutely no idea. To borrow a line from Lindsay Beyerstein, I do especially like the fact that the single mother valiantly trying to scrape by on a measly $180 $260 grand a year is portrayed like someone in a dust bowl photograph commissioned by the Farm Security Administration.

No, that poor, poor single mother is trying to scrape by on $260k/yr. It’s that retired black couple who’s destitute on $180k/yr, and still looking miserable even though their taxes aren’t going up at all.

Certainly not. In fact, jackbooted representatives of the U.S. government will shortly be arriving at your house to confiscate and sell your children’s stuffed animals in order to give the black people a rebate on taxes they never paid in the first place because Benghazi.

Some math. The poor single mother earns $260,000 a year and pays roughly $80,000 in taxes (Federal I assume). Net $180,000. She pays roughly $3500 more in tax. $1500 is from raising the investment tax to 20% from 15% (5% of $35000, oh the pain) and $2000 of that is from THE NONRENEWAL OF THE PAYROLL TAX HOLIDAY (2% of roughly $100,000, thank you Republicans).

What I would be interested in knowing is how that woman become single. Normally, being a single mother is VERY BAD for future income, but this woman is doing just fine (maybe not by WSJ standards, but by reality). Either she is an insanely-driven and ambitious person, in which case, good for her, she is reaping the rewards with that fat income.

Or… she married well and got a nice big divorce settlement, in which case she’s also getting some decent child support too. In that case, good for her, she’s doing just fine.

OK, let me guess. This graphic was put together by some really deep entry Trotskyist mole who’s been quietly burrowing away on the WSJ for the last 30 years, waiting for the perfect moment to issue a provocation that’ll make the masses pouring out of theaters showing Les Mis march straight to the Journal offices and storm them like the Bastille.

1. I am a Historian
2. The Democrat party stands for Socialism
3. If you write me that ticket I’ll call the Attorney Generals for our respective states (which are totally allowed to succeed from the union).

many years ago, when i was commuting by bus up to my office in DC, the bus went down 14th street on the way home. back then, 14th street was well known for its topless bars and porn stores. one day, while stopped at a red light, i happened to glance at a sign, in one porn store’s window. among other items for sale, were “martial aids”.

“4 Obama’s proposed changes to gun laws proves he is about to declare Marshall Law.”

to this day, i have no idea what those might have been, and it’s probably best that i remain ignorant.

One of my Facebook friends pointed out some further absurdity in those numbers:

For the single mom, I’d like them to footnote how much principal she invested to throw off that kind of investment income, then explain how in the world it was accumulated on that salary in those circumstances.

My hypothesis is that she had the good sense and foresight to inherit it.

Now that you can get it at Costco, McArdle will likely move on from cheap, commonplace stuff like pink himalayan salt to $300 vials of salt formed from the tears of parents of her human wave toddler fodder suicide squads, trained to rush assault rifle-wielding gunmen.

A friend of mine noted on Facebook that the picture of the single woman with her two kids who earns $260,000 looks like it was drawn to be evocative of Lange’s Migrant Mother. Truly, the irony, it is dead.

Eh, I really don’t see it. There’s only so many ways you can depict an unhappy woman with two children in a relatively small space. And even then, the particular poses are quite different. And simply the mom-with-two-kids setup seems fairly generic.